Halfway!

Well, I´m officially halfway through this pregnancy and halfway through my stay in Peru. It´s pretty impressive how quickly time flies even when the days seem so much longer due to the slow pace of life around here. I find that people are surprised to learn that I´m pregnant. I must be hiding my belly pretty well with my baggy clothes. From what I've read, I will probably be gaining most of my weight from now on, about a pound a week! I am feeling really good lately, so that's fantastic. I haven't had so much as a flea bite to complain about. Keep your fingers crossed I can last another 8 days without any issues before I board a plane for Ecuador!

Today is the summer solstice (winter solstice here) and so we woke up at 3:30 am to hike up the hills opposite Ollantaytambo to watch the sun rise over the mountains. We met a group of the other volunteers at 4am in the plaza and started our 45 minute hike together. It was a long line of flashlights through the dark up the hills. We built a bonfire and waited patiently for the sun to peak over the mountains. Apparently on the solstice the sun makes a pyramid shape over the ruins. Unfortunately for us, the sky was too cloudy to see what was supposed to be a dramatic display. Instead, I was able to capture some really neat photos of the snow capped mountains, (the Spaniards called this mountain, Veronica) in the opposite direction of where the sun display would have been.

I was proud of myself for keeping pace with the others, most of whom didn´t know that I was 5 months pregnant. I won´t lie, I was huffing and puffing at points and had to stop once to catch my breath but Peaps was really sweet to make sure she never left me behind. I think the exercise is doing me some good because I felt great afterward. Some of the other volunteers are going to try again tomorrow because the sun should make the pyramid of light all this week. I think I am going to have to pass this time. I hit my pillow as soon as we returned home at 8am and slept for another 4 hours. That was enough exercise for a couple of days.

I´m heading to the Telecentro (the after school program here in Ollanta) in a couple of minutes to do some homework help with the kids. And then at 5 o´clock is my English class. It´s really cute how excited they get on days that I teach English. Today we´re going to play some games involving numbers, food words and verbs.